Chula Vista  A South County elementary schoolteacher accused of molesting a former student and persuading young boys to send him nude photos through social media was ordered Friday to stand trial on 36 felony charges.

John Raymond Kinloch, 42, of San Ysidro faces several counts of committing a lewd act on a child, attempted lewd act on a child and possession of child pornography. If convicted, he could be sentenced to 430 years to life in prison.

After hearing witness testimony all day Thursday, Chula Vista Superior Court Judge Edward Allard III delayed making a ruling, giving himself time to review pertinent case law. On Friday, he ordered Kinloch to stand trial on all but two of the charges filed in the case.

The charges the defendant now faces relate to five victims, including a 17-year-old boy who testified he was molested for years by his former teacher at Feaster Charter School in Chula Vista, both on and off the school grounds.

Kinloch worked at the school from 2000 to 2009. He is now on leave from Wolf Canyon Elementary School, where he taught first grade.

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He was arrested in November when authorities with the San Diego Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force uncovered evidence that the defendant was masquerading online as a young boy or girl and collecting pornographic images of children.

According to evidence presented at the preliminary hearing, Kinloch is accused of setting up phony profiles — posing as someone named Jason, Amy or Brianna — and engaging in conversations with teenage boys.

Eventually, the conversations turned explicit. He is accused of asking the boys to take cellphone photos of themselves in various stages of undress. At least three complied.

Kinloch is also accused of starting a sexual relationship in the mid-1990s with a 14-year-old boy. The defendant was 24 at the time, said prosecutor Enrique Camarena.

Now 31, the man testified Thursday that he and Kinloch dated for about four years. The witness said they broke up for about four to six months in 1998, when he discovered a problem with Kinloch that scared and confused him.

“(Kinloch) had told me before that he was only interested in males sexually of a younger age, even younger than me,” said the man, whose full name was concealed during the hearing. Like some of the other witnesses, he was referred to in court by his initials.

“He put it to me very plainly over the phone and I didn’t know how to deal with it,” he said. “He called himself a boy lover.”

The witness also testified that Kinloch told him he had been involved in a child pornography ring, and testified against a man he knew in England who had been caught swapping photos.

Federal authorities granted Kinloch, who was a college student at the time, immunity from prosecution on those allegations in exchange for his testimony. He was never formally arrested or charged in the U.S. until the current case.

Anthony Millican, spokesman for the Chula Vista Elementary School District, said the district has made two requests for records from the U.S. Department of Justice that could explain the reasons why Kinloch was granted immunity. Both requests were denied.

"How could they make this decision when he was just one year away from obtaining his teaching credential?" Millican asked. He said the district is in the process of initiating a lawsuit.